The reunited-for-quite-a-few-years-now rockers Extreme will hit the road to celebrate their breakthrough album Pornograffiti throughout 2014, with dates announced for Japan, Europe and the UK so far.

Pornograffiti came out in 1990 and contained the band’s Billboard #1 hit, “More Than Words.” But the album was mainly comprised of harmonically sophisticated, shred-tastically innovative post-Van Halen hard rock, which is as good a reason as any to share this anecdote Nuno related to me for an interview last year (which went unpublished after Extreme’s planned 2013 Australian tour was called off):

“Around 1991 Dweezil Zappa invited me along to a rehearsal studio,” Nuno said. “He didn't tell me where we were going. I walked into a rehearsal space, the doors opened and there was Van Halen rehearsing. When they stopped the song Eddie came over and gave me a big hug and a kiss. First time a guy had kissed my lips in a while. But he was so welcoming, for a guy who was one of my major influences. He was so open. And after they finished rehearsal he was like, 'You want to play my rig?' And the whole time I was watching him play I was thinking 'There it is! There's that tone, right in front of me! If I could only play that rig on my own…' And then it came through! But there's one thing that really sucks, that I was really disappointed about. The whole time I was thinking "I can't wait to play this rig because I want to sound like Eddie." I wanted for years to be able to sound like him. And I had his guitar going into his amp and pedals and everything, and when I started playing I was so disappointed: it still sounded like me. I was like 'What the [expletive]?’ And I learned pretty quickly that day that it doesn't make a difference. Yeah, it makes a difference sort of, but you will always sound like you, no matter what. You could add a different colour, a different pickup, but your DNA is going to come out as you. I had Eddie Van Halen's rig, all of it right in front of me, the dream rig, and I still sounded like me, unfortunately."